Your home also needs proper maintenance

Like living members in a home, a house too has a childhood and old age and hence it also needs patch work and maintenance. Everyone is curious in designing their dream home and to construct it spending a lot of money. But in most cases, the house losses its charm of youth and reaches old age in a few years if not maintained properly. How much money do we spend and how many methods do we opt to reduce our age and keep it young! Then what about our home? If given proper maintenance at regular intervals your home will stay young for long. Yes, your home truly deserves home polishing at proper time and regular interval.

Give care from the designing phase itself. Maintenance doesn’t mean annual cleaning and painting only. Taking precautions to divert water from terrace before the arrival of rainy season, changing leaking taps and taking measures to avoid blocks in toilet also come under this section.  

What things are to be noted during construction phase?

1. It’s better to make a chart of those things that require maintenance. Categorize them to different groups according to the period – monthly, annually or any desired period.

2. If its structure is complex its maintenance may be complex too. Making it more artistic by adding extra work to elevations of exteriors may cause difficulties during maintenance work. Remember, it adds labour cost and maintenance cost, and looks bad if not properly maintained.  

3. Keep a plan of wiring, water supply and land phone connection. Mark all pipelines and plug points while planning or construction stage, which can help you in future during maintenance and renovation.  

4. Keep some equipment with you. Through proper supervision during construction stage it’s possible to repair certain mistakes.

5. Use only experts to do maintenance work so that you never have to spend money or time for repairing the same thing.

Normal maintenance

1. Air conditioners and generators need maintenance at regular intervals. Water drops from ac and air coolers can damage your floor and walls. So use trays and hoses as needed.

2. If water tank is constructed in the courtyard or home premises, give enough elevation so that water drops and mud won’t flow to your water tanks.

3. If you have fixed mosquito net in windows use a brush to clean them every week.

4. Ensure proper grounding of electric wires.

5. Never use chemicals or acids to clean floors. Use fresh water and ensure that the equipment used for cleaning floors never make scratches.

6. If a particular room is not used regularly it’s better to keep open its shelves at regular intervals to avoid bad smell.

7. Process the waste materials in a proper way. It’s better to avoid burning of plastic. Kitchen waste can be used for plants.

Avoid leaks

1. Before rainy season, you should clean all the beginning and ending portions of your drainage system. Also ensure free flow of water through pipes and drains. Assure that water never stays in your terrace for a long time. Remove fungus around the drainage as well as from your terrace before rainy season.

2. Branches of trees and plants bend on the roof can shed leaves causing blocks to free flow of water. Clean those leaves and if possible cut those branches tilted towards the terrace.

3. If you doubt for leaks in certain locations, cut cement from that point in 1 inch depth and clean those portions. Then cover it pouring cement slurry. Small leakages can be corrected this way.

You can also read a few more monsoon maintenance steps here.

What to do with plumbing

1. If you see small plants or algae growing on walls you can doubt leakage of pipe in that area. Give proper maintenance before it grows wider. Replace leaked pipes, flush and taps as early as possible. Clean water tanks and taps regularly to avoid leakage.

2. If you clean pipes, tapes and region around soak pit regularly, maintenance of toilets can be reduced considerably.

3. Build soak pits in such a way that waste from kitchen or rain water never reaches it. Also clean it once in every three or five years.

4. Never plant trees with deep roots near soak pits as their roots can block the free flow to tanks.

To avoid cracks on walls

1. Even small cracks should not be neglected. Big cracks may not be visible outside. Also, small cracks can turn bigger in due course of time.

2. Small cracks can be repaired easily using putty, cement slurry or paints. If cement is used for maintenance apply three coats of paint, first coat on that particular portion, second coat around that portion and final coat, the full wall.

3. If cracks are not so small, remove plaster and do maintenance and plaster again. 

4. You should water those parts, if cement has been used for patch work. Water it within 12-24 hours of work.

Image source: Pixabay

Read a few more articles on cleaning & maintenance of home, interior and its elements . Click on the images in the gallery to read